


in romania

by sevedra



Series: Portraits of Recovery [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-17 18:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13664886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevedra/pseuds/sevedra
Summary: He slept with a gun under the edge of the mattress and a knife under his pillow. He kept his go-bag packed and hidden under a loose floorboard. He was always ready, prepared. But sometimes, he could breathe.





	in romania

Bucky remembers the first days in Romania. He had spent 8 months traveling the world, seeking out the HYDRA posts that he knew for sure how to locate. He was still in The Winter Soldier mindset for a lot of that time. He went in silently and killed everyone he found. Usually, the bases were deserted. HYDRA had imploded along with SHIELD. Most of the time, he set charges and dropped grenades and left as quickly as he had come. Leaving a trail of fiery destruction blazing behind him.

Once he finally got his head on straight and exhausted his mental list of HYDRA locations, he knew he needed to lay low and quiet. He didn't remember a lot of his past. He had broken recollections of times before WWII and missions that The Soldier had performed. People he'd killed. Places he'd blown up. Intel he'd stolen or planted. It was all disjointed and nonlinear and confusing. He vehemently didn't want to return to HYDRA, but he felt pretty sure they were lying as low as he was so he was currently considering him fairly safe from recovery by them. He didn't want to go to the authorities. As near as he could figure, he was actually guilty of a long list of crimes that he was sure to be convicted of and thrown into a deep dark cell until they strung him up or set him before a firing squad. He didn't want to go to Steve. He barely remembered Captain America as Steve. The Steve he knew and could recall was very different. He didn't know what this new, other, Steve would do. And Bucky just wasn't fit for human companionship anyway.

He traveled across Europe by hitching rides in pickup trucks and the backs of wagons through towns that weren't on maps. It was slow and quiet and peaceful. No one asked him much beyond "how far are you going" and his answer to that was always "as far as you'll take me". His final destination turned out to be Bucharest. It wasn't planned, it just happened. He'd ridden in the bed of a pick-up full of vegetables as far as a market at the edge of town. The older man who'd driven offered to pay him in cash to help empty the truck and set up his wares in his stall. When Bucky had finished with that, another person had asked if he'd help move some boxes of goods from one end of the market to the other. After that, he'd been asked to help set up awnings. He'd spent lunchtime sitting with an ancient woman selling homemade soap and freshly baked bread, which she generously shared with him along with some hearty, earthy stew. He was still around when the market closed, so he helped break down tables and awnings and load excess food and crafts back into boxes and trucks. The man who'd brought him in that morning said he knew a place with a room to rent, if Bucky was in need of that sort of thing.

Bucky spent three weeks in that room and then used the cash he'd earned during those weeks to rent an apartment. And then he'd just never left.

He bought himself some empty notebooks early on. He taped the brochure from the Smithsonian in the first one. And then a few pictures of Captain America from magazines and newspaper articles. It helped him remember what Steve looked like now. He kept careful notes of every memory that came to him. Sometimes those were remnants of nightmares. He marked them so he'd know they weren't necessarily as accurate as some others might be.

He worked the market a few days a week. He worked at a warehouse on the opposite side of town a few others. It was good, clean, healthy work. Manual labor, but honest and genuinely helpful. It kept his body busy and exercised and in shape. It gave his mind a rest from his memories, but also gave him some time to think about his memories without having the chance to get obsessive. He had a sense of purpose and felt that he was healing from the years under HYDRA.

He bought a mattress and a pot and a plate. He picked up a table with a wobbly leg that was going to be thrown out. He taped magazine articles and newspaper stories to the windows. It blocked the view in, which helped when he felt paranoid and it let him keep up to date on happenings around the world, but especially in America, that he might need to know about.

He invested in a sturdy pair of jeans and two nice shirts for work. He stopped wearing his HYDRA combat boots and started wearing a pair of work boots like the truck drivers wore. He never let up on his vigilance, but he almost relaxed. He felt a hint of lessening in the tension that stayed between his shoulder blades. He slept with a gun under the edge of the mattress and a knife under his pillow. He kept his go-bag packed and hidden under a loose floorboard. He was always ready, prepared. But sometimes, he could breathe.

He never spoke to his neighbors. He nodded his head when they passed in the stairwell and he held the door if he happened to be there when someone else was entering or exiting. He spent time every night walking the perimeter of the building at ground level, then checking each hallway, and ending his patrol on the roof making sure no one was there and no one could be seen from any vantage point he could find.

He had a routine. He was comfortable enough to keep to a routine. He was always on the lookout for anyone noticing him, but he allowed himself to start to live.

One day, he saw his face on a newspaper. He knew his peace had come to an end. He returned to the apartment to gather what he could and prepare to move out. Before he could do anything, Steve Rogers was there and all hell broke loose.


End file.
